How Natalya Varley became an actress thanks to the clown and 5 more little-known facts about the "Caucasian captive"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

June 22 marks the 74th anniversary of the famous actress, the favorite of millions of viewers, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Natalya Varley. She played about 60 roles in films, but most of the audience remembered in the image of Nina from the "Caucasian Captive". But she ended up on the set thanks to a happy coincidence, and her film path began from the circus arena. Why on the set she had to risk her life, why the actress needs 3 diplomas, and what else the audience does not suspect about Natalya Varley - further in the review.

English and French roots

Natalya owed her unusual surname to her father's ancestors, among whom were the Volga Germans and English horse breeders. From the latter they received the Welsh surname Varley. According to family legend, back in the 19th century. The Russian manufacturer invited to Russia from Wales brothers-jockeys (according to another version - rich horse breeders) named Varley, who later married local girls and became Russified. And among the ancestors on the maternal side were the French - Natalia's mother, Ariadna Senyavina, was the granddaughter of the mining engineer Eugene Barbot de Marni, a descendant of immigrants from France.

Natalya's father was a sea-going captain, and the family often moved from city to city. Natalia was born in the Romanian city of Constanta, and then they lived in Leningrad, Moscow, Vladivostok and Murmansk. The girl went to school in Murmansk, and finished her studies in Moscow. Once, together with their mother, they went to the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, and there Natalya was struck by the announcement of the recruitment of children to the circus studio. Although she did not have the appropriate training, Varley was selected and began to study circus art.

From balancing actresses to actresses

In 1965, Natalya graduated from the acrobatics department of the State School of Circus and Variety Arts and for two years after that she performed in the circus as a balancing act. The legendary clown Leonid Yengibarov entered the same arena with her, thanks to whom Varley got on the set. He talked with the director Jungwald-Khilkevich and introduced Natalya Varley to him, and he offered her a role in his film "Formula of the Rainbow". In the pavilion of the Odessa Film Studio, she was seen by an assistant on actors Leonid Gaidai and invited to screen tests for the role of Nina in the "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

Together with Natalia, about 500 applicants passed the audition for the role of Nina, and the non-professional actress did not expect that she would be able to attract the director's attention. But she conquered him with her relaxedness and spontaneity in front of the camera. When she was asked to appear on the site in a swimsuit, Natalya did not hesitate to comply with this request, because in the circus it was practically her "uniform".

Unchained and risky Nina

When she received a telegram stating that she was approved for the main role, Varley was on tour in Tula. This news upset her rather than delighted her - she loved her act very much and did not even want to part with the circus for a short time. Then she could not even imagine that soon she would have to say goodbye to the arena forever, because at that time she did not seriously think about her film career and did not believe in her success. But after "Prisoner of the Caucasus" incredible popularity fell upon her, she became a popular favorite, thousands of women in hairdressing salons asked to have a haircut "like Varley's", and the directors bombarded her with new proposals.

During the filming of "Prisoner of the Caucasus" the actress came in handy for her circus training. She performed all the tricks on her own, but for the scene in which her heroine had to jump from a cliff into the water, Gaidai invited an understudy. But it turned out that the "stuntwoman" actually had nothing to do with this profession and deceived the film crew to see famous artists. As a result, Varley performed this risky trick on her own.

The mystical trail of Pannochka's role

For a while, Natalya tried to combine shooting with work in the circus, but soon she had to make a choice. And although he was in favor of the cinema, the actress admitted that she had dreamed of the circus for a long time. In 1967, Varley entered the Shchukin School and, in her first year, performed the main role in the film Viy, based on the story of the same name by Gogol.

Later, the actress heard more than once that Pannochka allegedly played a fatal role in her life, but she herself said to this gadfly: "".

The voice of two thousand foreign film heroines

After completing her studies, Natalia came to the Theater. K. Stanislavsky and performed there for 7 years. In the 1970s - the first half of the 1980s. she continued to act in films a lot. The most notable were her roles in the films "Seven Brides of Corporal Zbruev", "12 Chairs", "Guest from the Future", "I Don't Want to Be an Adult" and others, but none of her film works repeated the deafening success of "Prisoner of the Caucasus". In the second half of the 1980s. new proposals were received less and less, and in the 1990s. Varley, like many of her colleagues, was left without work. Then she took up the dubbing of foreign films and television series, the heroines Catherine Deneuve, Sophia Loren and Meryl Streep spoke in her voice. In total, she has voiced about 2,000 foreign film heroines.

Third education at 37 years old and 4 collections of poetry

In addition to the circus school and theatrical institute, Natalya Varley also graduated from the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, where she entered at the age of 37. And this was her third honors degree. Natalia wrote poetry since childhood. In 2017, the fourth collection of her poems was released. Even most of her fans do not know that she is not only a talented actress, but also a poet. But her poems say more about her than her films:

There are many interesting moments behind the scenes of this film masterpiece: Why Gaidai stopped working with Morgunov after the "Caucasian Captive".